1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to supports and support collars for elongate fasteners such as nails, pins, screws and the like, and fastener assemblies comprising such supports and support collars mounted on elongate fasteners. The invention particularly relates to strips of such fastener assemblies, in which the support collars are joined together, thereby providing strips of collated fasteners. The invention also relates to fastener-driving tools for such fastener assembly strips.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many fastener-driving tools include a driver that is propelled rapidly against a fastener to drive a fastener from the tool into a workpiece. The driver may include a piston, or a ram or impact member, for example. The driver may be propelled in any of a variety of ways, including pneumatically, by combustion, by means of a strap or chain, by means of a separate piston, or by means of one or more flywheels, for example.
Fastener-driving or firing tools have for many years included magazines such as holding and supply devices for the fasteners that are driven/fired from the tools. There are various known types of such magazines, including magazines arranged to store and supply loose fasteners, magazines for coiled strips of fasteners, and magazines for straight or curved strips of fasteners.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,069,340 discloses a strip of collated elongate fasteners in which a carrier molded from a polymeric material has a sleeve for each fastener. Each sleeve has an annular portion, and a breakable portion which breaks into two segments as the fastener gripped by the sleeve is driven from a fastener-driving tool. The breakable portion has a pair of similar, laterally opposed, outwardly opening, continuously curved concave recesses with open windows from which portions of the fastener emerges. In a fastener-driving tool, parallel ribs of a guiding device fit into such recesses, so as to guide the strip between such ribs. In use, the strip of collated fasteners is advanced incrementally towards a fastener-driving region, such that the leading fastener and its sleeve are driven from the tool into a workpiece.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,438,487 discloses a carrier for holding a plurality of fasteners with their shanks in a spaced-apart parallel relation, comprising an elongate flexible strip. The strip includes a web transversely spaced apart from the fastener shanks, and a plurality of slotted flanges along the upper and lower edges of the web extending substantially perpendicular to the web, for supporting the shank of each fastener. In this arrangement, when each fastener is driven from a fastener-driving tool, the fastener is separated from the carrier strip, and the carrier strip remains attached to the tool.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,830,364 discloses a nail carrier for supporting and locating nails to be fed to a power-operated nail driving device. The carrier includes a rigid plate having, on its top side, a first group of rigid studs arranged in two parallel spaced-apart rows and a second group of yielding studs disposed in one row parallel to the other two rows, and extending from the underside of the plate are reinforcing flanges. Two studs of the first group in conjunction with one stud of the second group provide a locating position for a nail, and this is repeated along the nail carrier.
The present invention seeks to provide improved fastener supports and support collars, fastener assemblies, strips of support collars and assemblies, and fastener-driving tools.